ST. ANDREWS – Tiger Woods wasn’t a half-hour removed from his sterling 6-under-par 66 yesterday in the opening round at St. Andrews when, during his post-round press conference, he matter-of-factly stunned the room with this tidbit of information: His mother, Tida, was in a hotel across the street from one of the sites where the terrorist bombs detonated in London a week ago.

What makes that revelation even more bizarre is Woods said he didn’t even know about it until Wednesday, when his swing coach, Hank Haney told him.

Huh?

You want curious? Well, there you go, you’ve got curious.

The entire revelation came about when Woods was asked what went through his mind during a United Kingdom-wide two-minute period of silence to mark the week anniversary of the bombings yesterday.

Woods was staring at a tricky chip shot near the 14th green when the noon air horn went off to begin the period of silence.

“For me personally, I was more thankful than anything else, because my mom was in the building right across the street from where (a) bomb blew up,” Woods said, leaving the packed room slack-jawed. “I was very thankful that my mom is still here. It very easily could have been pretty tragic for me personally.”

This is where things got a trifle questionable.

Asked if her hotel was near the bus explosion or one of the subways, Woods said, “You know, I don’t know. I’ve talked to her, but she hasn’t really said a whole lot. Typical Mom, you know. You know my mom. ‘Are you OK?’

” ‘Yeah, good. What are you going to do today on the course?’ That kind of thing. She likes to change the subject real fast.”

Tida Woods has always been the most stoic one in the family, but the fact her son wasn’t aware she had such a brush with fate until six days later is preposterous. And, the fact he had to find out from Haney borders on the ridiculous.

“I didn’t know,” Woods said. “She didn’t tell me. She doesn’t tell me anything. That’s kind of how our family is. If you’re injured or hurt or you’re sick you don’t tell anyone. You just deal with life and move on.

“My family doesn’t do that (communicate),” Woods went on. “When my dad (Earl) had cancer, he didn’t say anything. When I had my knee surgery, I didn’t say anything. We just do that. It’s one of our deals of probably being a Woods, I guess. Kind of deal with things and move on.”